May 20.—Quiet morning. No enemy artillery fire and only a little of our own. Later some shelling by both sides. Worked at erecting overhead cover on the support trenches at "Quinn's"—originally the fire trenches, the outcome of the line of holes dug after the landing. Funny kind of job: every time you showed a hand above the parapet the Turks had a shot at it. From 6.30 till about 7.30 all firing ceased on both sides. It was the first time we had experienced absolute quiet since our arrival here, and the sensation was a strange one. It was still stranger to hear the song of the lark; I reckon the birds sized it up as the end of the Great War, for they seemed to all slip out of their dug-outs at once. Heard it was a truce to allow the Turks to bring in their wounded. When the firing began again it was something to listen to! Big guns and little guns, they all seemed to be working overtime. They kept it up most of the night, too.
May 21.—On overhead cover same as yesterday. Fairly quiet all round. More rumours! Another truce talked of. Heard that quite a lot of prisoners surrendered to-day. Orders sent round that everything possible was to be done to encourage enemy to desert. Which reminds me——
A few nights ago three Turks were captured by a patrol and brought into camp. They said in broken English that they'd been trying to surrender. They were taken down to headquarters to be questioned, and later on sent back to our camp, the O.C. receiving orders to feed them up well, then give the beggars a chance to escape. The idea was that they would return to their own lines, tell their chums of the fine time they'd had in our camp, and thus cause a lot of deserting from the enemy. Nothing of this was to be said to them, of course.
Well, we took our prisoners down to the cook's quarters and gave them the time of their lives. They ate about a tin of jam each, ditto of condensed milk, showed a marked appreciation for the army biscuits, and (they couldn't have been true believers—or else they were just as much in the dark as ourselves regarding the contents) tackled the bully beef with gusto, finishing up with Woodbine cigarettes. They weren't game to sample the rum, however, but it wasn't wasted. When they were full up to the back teeth we asked them if they knew where there was any firewood to be got, as most of the big stuff had been cut out of the "Gully." Yes, they did know of some, but to get it they would have to crawl up close to their own lines. Things couldn't be better, we thought; they were told to clear out and get some. Away they went, up a deep nullah that bisected our lines—and returned a couple of hours later loaded up with brushwood like walking Christmas Trees! At their own request we led them back to the cookhouse, saw them started on a fresh supply of jam and condensed milk, and gave the thing up as a bad job. Catch them letting their mates into the secret of all those good things!
Indeed, most of our prisoners were only too pleased to remain with us once we'd caught them. We set them to various jobs, and, to do them justice, they worked away quite cheerfully, never, so far as I know, attempting to escape from a place where they were so well fed and got free smokes. The Australians installed one as camp barber, and the blue-jackets from the fleet used to grin at the spectacle of a big husky Turk going round his enemy's throat with a keen-edged razor.
About this time most of us had grown full beards. I don't know who originated the style, but it got to be the fashion to trim our beards to a point à la His Majesty. Then our slouch hats underwent the trimming process, the result being a far-fetched jockey's cap. Then nearly every chap cut his slacks or breeches off well above the knee, and a great many discarded puttees. Others shore their shirt-sleeves off shoulder high. Still others went without their shirts altogether in the daytime, going naked from the waist up. So you can guess what the Anzac Army looked like! No wonder the Turks did a bolt when our ragtime mob of toughs rushed them with the bayonet! They looked like a crowd of sundowners who had struck an out-back trail and got badly bushed in a dry season.
May 22.—Went up to "Quinn's" at 7 a.m. to go on with sticking up overhead cover. Rather rainy morning. Mud—and such mud!—everywhere. Work of art climbing hill owing to feet caking inches deep with the sticky clay soil. Just got started to work when taken off to make loopholes in a new front fire trench—enemy's trench being only about fifteen yards away. Trench badly exposed to cross-fire from machine-guns well placed on rising ground. All around were splashes of blood. Australian officer informed us that a number of his men had been shot while lying at the bottom of this trench. Did what we could, but as fast as we stuck the sandbags up they were cut to pieces and blown down by Maxim fire. Bombed out many times. Had many narrow shaves. Forced to give it best and wait till dark, when we'll have another try. All these dirty jobs seem to fall to the engineers. Rain cleared off in afternoon. Mail came in to-day. Got four letters—very satisfactory. "Jack Johnsons" at work again. Snipers also busy; bagged quite a lot of our chaps to-day. Our snipers are beginning to thin them down, however. Our trench mortars emptied bombs finely into enemy's trenches lately. Fairly quiet night, with rifle fire going off in bursts now and then.
May 23.—Went on at "Quinn's" again, loopholing and strengthening fire trenches. Curious state of affairs here: we sapped out towards enemy's lines some time ago—and met the Turks doing the same towards us. Result: a communicating trench from our lines into his, which is guarded night and day at either end by each party respectively, the intervening distance being about ten yards! Didn't dare to expose ourselves, as sharp-shooters were sniping all the time from two sides, a cross-fire at a range of about forty yards. Got back to camp and found issue of rum awaiting me, also ration of fresh beef. Cooked it on a grill made of twisted fencing wire and had an A1 blow-out. More letters to-day. Wonder what the navy is doing at the Dardanelles? Rumours; the air is full of them. Here are three: (a) Turkey has demanded either £40,000,000 or £50,000,000 from Germany, otherwise she will join the Allies; (b) we are going to be relieved and sent home to England on the 25th instant, to refit; (c) submarines are cruising about quite close.
To-day the warships bombarded the enemy's trenches just in front of our own, first giving us warning to keep our heads well down. Didn't need the warning, as shells simply skimmed our parapets. One plumped into a trench full of Australians. Didn't do much damage luckily, but upset the harmony of a nice little card-party playing poker. Result: the loss of some money and several tempers. Got a blanket served out to-day. Could have done with it a long time ago. Still waiting for trousers; the pair I own now on their last legs.
Talking of legs, I bumped into one to-day sticking out into one of our support trenches. You had to duck to pass it. Seems that our chaps when building the cover found a dead Turk badly in their way, and as they would have had some difficulty in removing him they decided to build him up in the roof; his leg slipped through, however, so they just let it hang. Quiet night; hardly any firing at any part of the line.